politics

It was the home stretch of the 2011 mayor’s race in San Francisco, and state Sen. Leland Yee needed all the help he could get. An early favorite in the campaign, he would end up plummeting to a fifth-place finish.

But there was still some hope on Oct. 19, which is when the campaign for state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, contributed $500, the most allowed by San Francisco law, to Yee’s flagging campaign.

Two and a half years later, Padilla is the frontrunner in the 2014 race for California secretary of state. Yee was a strong candidate until the “Shrimp Boy” corruption scandal forced him to withdraw.

Given Yee’s now-ironic record of promoting open government, the secretary of state position was long considered a logical landing spot once he was termed out of the Senate. Did Padilla simply think his fellow Democratic lawmaker was the best man for the job? Or was he rooting for a field-clearing Yee win in San Francisco? Continue Reading →